Third Brazil prison riot in a week leaves 3 dead

A riot in the jail of a police station in the Amazon city of Iranduba left three inmates dead, Brazil's third prison uprising in the past week.
The prisoners rebelled very early on Sunday but the violence was brought under control by authorities later in the morning, officials with the Military Police told the daily O Globo's online edition.

The sources did not specify the number of people who were wounded or whether the deaths occurred in the brawl that erupted among the prisoners or when police intervened to regain control of the inmates.

The rioters were protesting the overcrowding in the jail, which was designed to hold eight prisoners but was housing about 40, among them accused people awaiting trial and convicts, all of whom were held together since the facility also functioned as a prison.

"After the riot, there were negotiations and the possibility of transferring some prisoners is being studied," said policeman Geraldo Pereira de Oliveira, as quoted by the paper's Web page.

Last Wednesday, three other prisoners died at the hands of their fellow inmates in a riot in a prison in Manaos, the capital of the northern state of Amazonas, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the city in which Sunday's uprising occurred.

Two days before that, 18 prisoners were murdered by fellow inmates in another riot in a prison in the city of Sao Luis, the capital of the northeastern state of Maranhao.

In the three cases, authorities attributed the riots to the overcrowding that is a common feature of the majority of Brazilian prisons, among other things.